I don't want came over me-but I want to qualify again. Or at least do well. So, I decided I will start attending qualifiers for extended.

Deck Choice?

"The Rock"

What else?
I love this deck. I made a version that my one of my JSS'ers qualified with in T2. I don't know why it was dismissed in Type 2, but maybe the lack of playtesting and find the right version. It can adapt to any environment change with ease.

Here is what I put together for him to run at States, and what he Q'ed for Nationals with(well, at least close to it):

I thought this deck had great match-ups against all the Tier-1 decks out there. With affinity, you just crush them with your main deck smothers, vigilante, and oblivian stones. Then sideboard comes in more artifact hate. However, there was a change in deck choices, and blue/white came the new deck to play.
So in came withered wretch main, and some sideboard, along with more Decree's.

After seeing the recent bannings for extended, I wanted to play The Rock again-and qualify. I mean, this deck was just fine before the banning.
Take a look at the success in a combo field:
[Even though the deck was built specifically to take down combo decks]

As you can see, it has 4 'Tangs' main, and two shamans, with Negator specifically in there to race Tog and Tinker decks.

However, things will change come January.

So, what can I look to as the Top Decks for me to beat? I'd say 'Tog', 'The Rock', 'Red Deck Wins', 'RDW', and 'Dump Truck'.

Why, oh, why did Ben Rubin have to come back from extinction and play, and win with, a total pile of a deck. Well, it's not a pile, but very close after January comes.
Of course, you could revise the deck he had without so much hate for one-sided deck choices-Tinker.

So, there are options as what to play. Looking on BB forums, I saw good ole' Sol Malka talking on it.

To save your the trouble of searching for it, or if your not in their special club, here is what he said:

Wow. I give up. These forums are hopeless. Notice how my list was for JANUARY 1.x ! You'd have to be pretty stubborn to run Rock in the current meta .

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I ran Rock successfully at a GP trial last weekend, actually. The field was very small but the competition was stiff (no bad decks, no truly incompetent players) and I managed to go 5-0 (10-1 in games), counting only those matches that were actually played. I beat RDW, Tog twice, Hermit, and Tinker/Stax. The one loss was to Hermit but I played many (15-20) unsideboarded games vs. Hermit a few days later and won half of them.

I feel very good about the Tog and Red Deck Wins matchups with this deck. Assuming my Hermit testing wasn't an aberration and I can win 50% of game 1s, I'd say that's an above average matchup as well since I gain a lot from sideboarding (Edicts and Plagues) and they don't. That's a pretty big chunk of the field right there. And Goblin Recruiter and Tinker don't seem unreasonable either.

Note that the one main deck Krosan Reclamation is good vs. most of the field. It thwarts Recruiter (two of them!), reanimation spells (and can't be dealt with completely by their duress/therapy), Madness (wonder, roar sometimes), anything that uses Mirage block tutors, even random stuff like Accumulated Knowledge or Genesis.

I beat the mirror, 2 Tog decks, Hermit, Red Deck Wins, and Twiddle Desire. I lost one GAME - in the Twiddle Desire matchup, presumably one of the worst for Rock. I should have lost one game to Hermit, but my opponent made mistakes. Still, the deck's record in individual games actually played (i.e. not IDs) during this PTQ and last week's GPT is 22-2.

[Aside: I dropped in the finals and gave up the slot in return for most of the product. My opponent was the Kibler Hatetog player (Zach Parker) referenced in Brian's front page Premium article. I beat this deck 2-0 in the Swiss rounds of both the GPT and the PTQ and it's a great matchup for a skilled Rock player.]

It seems many Rock players are going all-out to try to beat Tinker. The Rock deck in the top 8 at Anaheim had a creature base of 6 mana creatures, 6 humpmonkeys and 4 negators. He lost in the quarterfinals to Red Deck Wins, traditionally a good matchup for The Rock.

I'm a firm believer in maintaining the deck's strength against its better matchups instead of warping it to try to beat its (theoretically) worse matchups. (This would explain the presence of Genesis in both the deck and board, giving me effectively 7 copies of the most important card in the favorable Tog matchup.) Besides, at least based on my results, a 'traditional' Rock deck can still hang with just about anything in the field, even pre-bannings.

quote:
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I doubt that very, very, very much. Going undeafted at a PTQ (current extended, tinker, belcher, vantage) with Rock and especially that build with no monger, 4x elder, no main deck negators and no dust bowl and a whooping 4x wish in this current metagame. No way Jose!

Please post the PTQ you attended and I will check to see if any Rock deck went undeafted.

My name is in the 2nd place position of each, which is consistent with my dropping from the events prior to the finals. It doesn't show the players' match records but this ought to be enough evidence for ya.
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I can only presume this is Sol since he provides the links and enough proof of his sucess. However, this is a great sign for The Rock's sucess at future PTQ's.

What are other choices for this deck?

Troll Ascetic: I like this card against Tog, and RDW. It's a three drop that could easily replace the Tangs when January comes about.

Smother: I like this card main-kills Tog- in Tog, Wild Mongrel, Aqua, Roots-in U/G, RDW-alot! Red deck wins-ALOT!
The edicts are being played now because of reanimating decks out there.

Wild Mongrel?: Why not? I mean, we could speed this deck a little faster, and with Yavimaya Elder, why not? I haven't decided on this one yet.

More Spiritmongers: Yeah, only a few decks play this, and only one. Why not give more elves to accelerate into this fattie? My only concerns is Gilded Drake.

Masticore: Oh, where, oh, where have you been? Cheez.... I think with more red decks popping up, and little creatures, like Meddling Mages, I see no reason to run him.

Deranged Hermit+Plaguelord?: Has anyone thought about this old school combo? The 'original' formation. Once again, you'd need 4 Elves and 4 Birds.

Withered Wretch: I might have to run him main because of Tog, with their A.C.'s and because of other Rock decks-filth being a problem if they Wish for it.

Those are my thoughts, if anyone out there has played this, or is playing it, drop me a line. I'd love to digress more about the deck...